ERBIL – After nearly a year of political differences and negotiations sponsored by the United Nations mission in Baghdad and Erbil, and after international pressure, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has taken its first steps to break the noose on itself politically, after the presidency of the region set a date for holding elections for the sixth session of the Kurdistan Parliament on November 18.

Seven Kurdish parties, led by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union (PUK), and other influential parties, reached an agreement to hold elections after more than a year of disagreements that rocked the political situation, foremost of which was the mechanism for distributing electoral districts and the voter register in various regions of the region.

The new political agreement stipulates that the region will be divided into 4 constituencies to elect the 111 members of parliament (Al Jazeera)

Difficult labor

The agreement resulted in the elections being held according to 4 electoral districts, with one district for each of the four governorates of the region, namely Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Dohuk and Halabja, relying on the voter records of the Independent High Electoral Commission in Iraq, and data from the Federal Ministry of Planning to determine the percentage of governorate seats, with an agreement to monitor the elections by the United Nations, international organizations and the Federal Electoral Commission.

The region has so far held 5 parliamentary elections; the first in 1992, the second in 2005, the third was held in 2009, followed by the fourth elections in 2013, and the fifth and last in 2018, while the last elections witnessed the participation of 59% of the total eligible voters within the region.

A total of 2018 lists and political entities participated in the 29 elections, while only 16 lists were able to obtain seats in the 111-seat parliament, of which 11 were allocated to national and religious minorities (quotas) distributed among Turkmens with 5 seats, the same for Christians and one seat for Armenians.

Over the past months, the region has been subjected to sharp internal and international criticism for postponing the elections, especially after the President of the region, Nechirvan Barzani, signed on February 24, 2022, an executive order setting the first of October last year as the date for holding elections for the sixth session of the Kurdistan Parliament, but it was postponed after the regional parliament voted last October to extend its legislative life and postpone the elections for only one year, to be held during the current year. With provincial council elections.

The Kurdistan Region held 5 elections that began in 1992 and the last was in 2018 with a participation rate of 59% (Al Jazeera)

The most prominent controversies

PUK member Faiq Yazidi is not optimistic that the elections will help end or resolve Kurdistan's political crises, especially with regard to differences between the two main parties.

"Setting the date of the elections was an individual procedure by the KDP under the cloak of the presidency of the region without returning to its main partner, the PUK, or at least consulting it, despite previous meetings between the two parties to agree on key points in order to hold and date the elections," he said.

Yazidi confined – in his speech to Al Jazeera Net – the most prominent of these points in amending the electoral law first so that the region is divided into 4 electoral districts, in addition to updating and cleaning voter records, as he put it.

"Kurdistan's elections are the only ones in the world in which the dead have been voting for more than two decades," he added, referring to what he considers fraud in voter registers, stressing that his party will not accept formal elections that do not adopt a law that guarantees the rights of all, as he put it.

Contrary to Yazidi, KDP member Shirzad Qasim believes that the agreement on the election law will pave the way for other differences between Kurdish parties to be gradually resolved, especially between the two main parties, commenting that "the crisis between the two main parties is not in the form that appears in the media, which is working to magnify it more than reality."

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Qassem reveals that many talks were held between his party and the National Union before setting the date for the elections, which resulted in a number of major agreements that he describes as "necessary", most notably holding elections and giving legitimacy to the regional government, as well as obtaining each party its right through the results, according to him.

Qassem pointed out that the two main parties went with several proposals to other Kurdish parties to agree on many of them, noting that this was a strong incentive for the presidency of the region to determine the date of the elections on November 18, stressing the imminent holding of a session of the regional parliament - during the coming period - in order to discuss the amendment of the election law, which includes the terms of the agreement between the Kurdish parties, as well as determining the members of the electoral commission, according to him.


International pressure

Kurdish political analyst Gorran Qadir does not hide the impact of international and external pressure on determining the date for the region's elections, especially through the pressure of international aid received by the regional government from some countries, such as the international coalition and those of the Peshmerga forces.

The Kurdish analyst – in his interview with Al Jazeera Net – that one of those international pressures on the region was the issuance of the arbitration panel of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris decision in favor of Iraq against Turkey in the case related to the export of crude oil from the Kurdistan region through the Turkish port of Ceyhan without reference to the Iraqi Oil Marketing Company (SOMO), describing the decision as "influential pressure" very on the region.

Returning to the possibility of holding elections, the spokesman for the Board of Commissioners in the Regional Electoral Commission, Sherwan Zarar, identifies the availability of 5 legal conditions for holding the elections, explaining that the first of which is to reactivate the Board of Commissioners and give it confidence again by Parliament after its legal term expired since 2019, pointing out the need for Parliament to work to complete the quorum of the Board of Commissioners, which consists of 9 seats, by determining who will occupy the two currently vacant seats.

He adds that out of a total of 5 conditions that must be met to hold elections, only two conditions are currently available, namely the regional decree that sets the date for holding elections, and the time period that must not be less than 6 months before the date of the elections, which may actually mean the difficulty of holding elections within the period set by the presidency of the region, indicating the need for parliament to amend the electoral law and determine the reliance on the type of electoral districts, in addition to the imperative of the regional government allocating a special budget for the elections.